Jaycee Lee Dugard Found: Family Says Abducted 11-Year-Old Located 18 Years Later
Jayce Lee Dugard's Stepfather Says California Authorities Have Woman, Suspected Captors

By SARAH NETTER
Aug. 27, 2009—


A California stepfather who heard his little girl scream as she was abducted 18 years ago said she has been found alive and well and her captors are in custody.

A woman claiming to be Jaycee Lee Dugard, now 29, walked into a police station in tiny Antioch, Calif., Wednesday, her stepfather Carl Probyn told ABCNews.com today. Based on conversations his wife has had with police, the FBI and the woman herself, Probyn said the family is convinced Jaycee has been found.

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"I had personally given up hope," he said. "I had just hoped for a recovery" and to find the people responsible.

Instead, he said, "I've actually won the lotto."

Authorities are keeping mum until a press conference at 6 p.m. ET, but court records show that a search warrant was issued Wednesday for 1554 Walnut Ave., Antioch. Records indicate it is the address of Phillip and Nancy Garrido.

Additional court records state that the Garridos are in police custody in Concord, Calif. Both are charged with kidnapping to commit rape and bail was set at $1 million.

FBI Sacramento Special Agent Steve Dupre told ABCNews.com today that he could not confirm any details about the woman, but that "we've had an open case since it happened in '91."

The El Dorado County Sheriff's Office, which covers the area where Jaycee was taken, declined to provide further details.

Helen Boyer, the Garridos' neighbor for more than 10 years, said she would be completely shocked if it turned out they had something to do with Jaycee's kidnapping.

"There was no girl living next door as far as I knew," she said.

Boyer said the couple were caregivers to Phillips Garrido's bedridden mother. They would sometimes have three young blonde girls, friends of the family, she said, come visit.

"They were real good neighbors," she said. "Real nice people."

Probyn said his stepdaughter had been transferred from Antioch to Concord, a smaller city in the area more than a two hour drive from the South Lake Tahoe, Calif., neighborhood where Jaycee was snatched on June 10, 1991 as she tried to catch the bus to school.

"I saw them pull her in and I tried to get her," Probyn said.

The kidnapping terrified the community and led to a massive manhunt.

His wife, Terry Probyn, who now lives in Orange County, left for northern California at 6 a.m. today, joining the couple's 19-year-old daughter who was just a year old when her sister was kidnapped.

"She's in shock," Probyn said of his wife. "I told her and my daughter to sit down there and think of questions to ask her."

Probyn said he doesn't have any details of what had happened to Jaycee for the last 18 years or who abducted her, but he claims that the FBI told his wife that "they have Jaycee and the people she was with."

"She sounds like she's okay," he said. "She had a conversation with my wife and she remembers things. I hope she's been well treated this entire 18 years."

No DNA test has been done to confirm the woman's claims, but Probyn said his wife told him that she remembers her childhood. Plus, he added, the FBI likely wouldn't have upset his wife unnecessarily unless they were pretty sure.


Looking for Jaycee: 'I've Gone Through Hell'
Jaycee's abduction tore at the entire family.

"I've gone through hell," Probyn said, noting that investigators and even members of the extended family looked at him suspiciously for months afterward.

He and his wife, though still legally married, were separated.

Now Probyn just wants to find out who these people are that took his daughter and why.

And of course, to see the now-grown woman he thought was gone for good.

Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, told ABCNews.com today that while remarkable, the possible discovery of Jaycee reinforces data that shows kidnappers who are not related to the child typically aren't child killers.

"The Jaycee Dugard case is huge," he said. "There are some people who assume that when a child disappears there is no hope."

"This provides hope," he said, "for so many searching families."

Many children abducted in the same manner as Jaycee do not have such a happy ending.

Though the country rejoiced when Elizabeth Smart was found alive months after the 14-year-old was snatched, many are never heard from again.

One of the most famous missing children cases is that of Etan Patz, the Manhattan boy who disappeared while walking to a school bus in Manhattan in 1979. Despite 30 years of investigations and theories, no trace of the boy has been found.

In June it appeared that a boy who disappeared in 1955 had turned up alive. John Barnes of Michigan was convinced that he was actually Stephen Damman, snatched from his stroller when he was 2-years-old and living on Long Island, N.Y.

Stephen Damman's 78-year-old father Jerry Damman became hopeful that he was finally being reunited with his son, but DNA tests dashed his dream.

"It's disappointing and it's too bad we had to go through all of this for actually nothing in the end," Damman said after the results of the tests were revealed.

Steven Stayner was also a prominent case of a kidnapped boy. He was a California boy who was snatched at the age of 7 in 1972. Nine years later he went into a police station after his captor had grabbed another boy. "I know my first name is Steven," he told police. Stayner's story later became a television movie.


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